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Enhanced NOW-Sort on a PC Cluster with a Low-Speed Network  

Kim, Ji-Hyoung (Korea University)
Kim, Dong-Seung (Dept.of Electrical Engineering, Korea University)
Publication Information
Journal of KIISE:Computer Systems and Theory / v.29, no.10, 2002 , pp. 550-560 More about this Journal
Abstract
External sort on cluster computers requires not only fast internal sorting computation but also careful scheduling of disk input and output and interprocessor communication through networks. This is because the overall time for the execution is determined by reflecting the times for all the jobs involved, and the portion for interprocessor communication and disk I/O operations is significant. In this paper, we improve the sorting performance (sorting throughput) on a cluster of PCs with a low-speed network by developing a new algorithm that enables even distribution of load among processors, and optimizes the disk read and write operations with other computation/communication activities during the sort. Experimental results support the effectiveness of the algorithm. We observe the algorithm reduces the sort time by 45% compared to the previous NOW-sort[1], and provides more scalability in the expansion of the computing nodes of the cluster as well.
Keywords
I/O; sort; cluster computing; parallel algorithm;
Citations & Related Records
Times Cited By KSCI : 2  (Citation Analysis)
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